Lose yourself to find True Freedom

Lose yourself to find True Freedom

Humility, self emptying and surrender are powerful keys to unlock the doors to the blessing of God’s grace flowing through as our own True nature.

In this opening we are free from the burden of trying to be ‘someone’ achieving our own accomplishments in the world to prove our worth.

 The Invitation (from Mooji) is a brilliant tool for this kenosis, self emptying and Self realisation.

When really scrutinised in the light of awareness the apparent egoic one is always changing and is unstable. Perhaps this is what the bible references to building your house on shifting sands actually refers to.
Paradoxically as Mooji says in The Invitation

‘our most solid ground is in formlessness’
Spiritual paradox completely blows the minds logic!

However if we really do not acknowledge this greater power and majesty of the divine and surrender, but instead we believe in our own personal self as the ‘doer’.

If we really are convinced that the ‘I me’ who thinks itself to be the body, mind and personality should be given all the glory for our efforts, this can become a crippling pride and arrogance for the ‘person’ and can create much pain and sense of separation for the being.  We can appear to be desperately trying to prove our own worth, rather than actually surrendering ourselves, getting our egoic false self out of the way and truly being a channel, an empty vessel for unconditional love to pour through.  Yet what a blessing and joy even this contraction is – for it is the birth pains of a greater freedom.

We can do good in this world and this is definitely commendable and wonderful and even transformative.   And yet if the giving is essentially to prove our own worth it can feel like a kind of slavery.  Do we actually fully follow the transformational journey of enlightenment and self discovery that liberates our soul from the bondage of ‘polishing our personality’? (Emaho)

Do we realise who we truly are in the unity of spirit which has a profound effect and shift in the essential fundamental identity of the being?  This shift in identity can bring such love, happiness and freedom, and once again harmonise with the natural, intuitive and spontaneous flow of Life.
Surely the fruits of the spirit (joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faith, modesty, self-control) emerge because of the dissolution of egoic false identity (death to self)  and surrender to the will of the divine.  Not by trying to prove ones own worth as a separate individual ego, needing to claim the recognition.  The apparent separate egoic one in it’s own nature is selfish and fearful and wants control.  It cannot help but to be that.  We know it only too well!

Even though some loving and kind people who would not necessarily call themselves ‘religious’ at all, would not associate the love and compassion they so highly value with a divine power.  They might perhaps say that the love and kindness of the human heart is powerful and transformative, humility is a wonderful quality and it does not need to be attributed to some ‘God’ or ‘Christ’ or ‘Buddha’ at all.  It is true in a way that it needn’t be – as the naming is really not so important but Love itself is important!  Love is valued highly in humanity no matter how it is categorised or understood!  Love transcends religion we could say!  Another name for ‘Love’ – for some beings – is ‘God’.

There are many paths up the mountain of love.

But our limited ego cannot really love by its own individual efforts!

However the wonderful news is ego is not really who we are!  Perhaps this is what Paul means when he says…..

‘For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do -this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.’  Romans 7 Verse 19 -20

Paul goes on to say

‘Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.’   Romans 7:25

What is this Christ?  Is Christ this Love of which we speak?  Is Christ another name for universal truth or reality?  Is Christ another name for consciousness or the True Self?

This bible language can be really hard for us to swallow in this modern day but perhaps what Paul is really saying is that our deep heart is pure.

Our natural, uncontaminated ‘mind’ or beingness is innocent.  We naturally seek to be one with God and we can discover that we are that.

Through ‘Christ’ who speaks of unity and light and peace as reality.  Through the universal awakening of Christ consciousness we are one with God.

Jesus says himself he is ‘truth’ and ‘life’.

We are existence in and as the love of God who is ‘spirit’.

But if driven by our ‘sinful nature’, selfishness, separation, egoic desires, unconsciousness then we become a slave to our own impure thinking.  Our selfish egoic mind.  The deceiver.

Jesus reminds us of what is within us as children of God

‘The kingdom of Heaven is within you’.  Luke 17:21

‘Lose yourself’  Matthew 16:25

Similarly Jack Kornfield who was trained as a Buddhist monk says

‘My teacher Ajahn Chah used to say, “There is suffering, there is the cause of suffering, and as the Buddha teaches in the Four Noble Truths, there is the end of suffering. Wherever you are, that is the place of practice.” Sometimes suffering comes through clinging to certain emotional pain or certain stories; sometimes through not recognizing emptiness, the evanescence of life, that nothing can be claimed as I or mine. The point of dharma practice is to pay attention to where there is suffering, see the clinging and identification, and release it to find a freedom of heart.’  The Sure Heart’s Release.  An interview with Jack Kornfield  By Tricycle

So, as we have been exploring in this and the previous blog, there is a cost to believing the lie that we can claim the prize of our own success in the world.

The ego who likes to feel it knows and is in control does not want this sort of betrayal of its regime!  Oh it will fight tooth and nail to keep its hold on us.

I love this clip from Mooji on winning yourself back and have watched it over and over again!  So powerful it is!  This illustrates also the power with simply staying with God, staying as awareness.
All the time there is peace here, there is grace here, there is a background of silence and presence in which is our own nature. We are already home. It is not really a process. There does not need to be waiting.  We are already the timeless being, untouchable, ineffable and imperishable whether we realise it or not!  What an amazing miracle this existence is!

‘There is no blame here or condemnation, we have all fallen asleep and been enticed by egos traps to greater and lesser degrees. We have all gone up blind alleys and grazed our knees and fallen. It is not personal. No one is to blame.  Of course there is forgiveness and acceptance of our human brokenness and blindness.   There is so much love.  It is powerful to pray.  We are not really separate like we think we are anyway.

“I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.” Hafiz (Sufi Mystic) 

The most important thing is that we wake up, if we wish to that is!

Also that we notice how deceptive and enticing this egoic identity can be. It starts off innocent and even necessary.  It is needed to play a part in this awakening.  actually. If we were not bitten by the pain of thinking we are only the restricted body and conditioning, we would not flee into the arms of freedom, we would not seek peace and liberation.  We would not transcend.

So we can BLESS the ego and say thank you.  It is necessary to help us come home actually, but be vigilant to turn to truth!
Turn to what is good and humble and unifying with God. For it is only through dismounting from the proud stallion of ego that we truly find the treasure and purity of humility, of service to humanity. Mooji tells a wonderful  parable to illustrate this!

May be the example of awakening demonstrated by so many saints and sages encourage us to wake up fully as they did?  To bring peace and end suffering, released from the grip of samsara (hell). Clear seeing and pure understanding which breaks the bondage of delusion and reveals the light of truth and the love of God that is our very own nature.  For so long it has been thought that awakening takes years, lifetimes and is practically impossible but this thinking, thankfully today, is challenged.

As Mooji says ‘we have the advantage because we are already The Self’

We are already this – just dreaming that we are not!  Through this reverence to God and total trust and faith in the divine can grace break through.

“In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:78-79)

Not by my will, but by Thy will be done, ‘on earth as it is in heaven’. (Lord’s prayer)
Through this seeing of our true identity as consciousness a metamorphosis occurs and reveals the light within that is the light of this world. The light of the love of God. But this metamorphosis is not necessarily comfortable. In fact we can feel severely tested and challenged.  It can be most disorientating, it can feel risky and unknown.

We are the unknown.

It can feel like a kind of dying but this death is a good death, into Life itself!

When we realise we are consciousness and that we are not essentially this ‘personal identity’. The ego is witnessed, it is observed from a deeper place in us and there is a greater deeper awareness in which the ego sense arises.  To surrender our achievements, attachments and desires and bow down in reverence to the supreme intelligence that creates every cell in your body and every atom of this universe. This is a monumental yet invisible turning in the heart. A transformation probably no one will really see or understand.  This is not for everyone at this moment either – we all have our own unique timing in a way but deeper down we are all one in spirit.

We are all ‘home’ even though we don’t necessarily know it. But what a realisation if we really ponder on that!

Ramana Marashi says ‘the I removes the I and remains the I’

“You have to see and meet God in this life.
Don’t let this life go by and miss discovering the Supreme One.
You will find him inside as your constant being.
Pray: Holy mother, holy father, holy spirit,
don’t give me the illusion that even one second belongs to me.
All is you. I, also, am you and yours.
For only like this does your life stand the chance to be miraculous.”
― Mooji  White Fire 

Jesus says, “Believe in the light so that you also may become children of the light” (John 12:36)

Thich Nat Hahn says  ‘When we recognize and acknowledge our own suffering, the Buddha–which means the Buddha in us–will look at it, discover what has brought it about, and prescribe a course of action that can transform it into peace, joy, and liberation. Suffering is the means the Buddha used to liberate himself, and it is also the means by which we can become free.’